About
Always building.
Mason Kesner has been building things since he was 12, starting with puppet shows for kids' birthday parties. That instinct never left, carrying through the twenty plus years since, most notably founding and exiting Asmbly Agency before launching his consultancy, BreakPoint Strategies. From the outside, each new venture looked like ambition. From the inside, some of it was — and some of it was hustle used as a place to hide from parts of his life he didn't yet have the time, or the safety, to face.
Raised deep inside the church, in the heart of the Bible Belt — close enough to see behind the curtain — Mason eventually walked away, unsure what he believed, but sure it wasn't what he'd been living. What followed was years of separating the faith he was raised in from the performance it had become, and doing the same work in how he saw his politics, his relationships, and himself.
Mason now writes and speaks on the space between performance and truth: in business, in belief, in what it costs to build a life worth living. He's Founder & CEO of BreakPoint Strategies, advising founders and growth-stage brands. He's writing at masonkesner.substack.com. He lives in New York City.
Career
- 2023–Present
Founder & CEO, BreakPoint Strategies
New York, NY
Advising enterprise and PE-backed growth-stage brands on commercial transformation, go-to-market and revenue acceleration.
Community Mentor, Mana Tech · 2026–Present
Advisor, B2B/B2C Commercialization, Personify Group · 2026–Present
- Personify Group Adds Mason Kesner to Board ↗ · Dentistry33, Apr 2026
VP, Growth & Strategy, Unite Digital Holdings · 2024–2025
- 2018–2023
Managing Partner, Head of Business, Asmbly Agency
Bentonville, AR & New York, NY
Retail's premier third-party content partner: 250+ brands and a private exit.
- Netflix to Sell 'Squid Game' Goods, Other Products on Walmart Site ↗ · The Wall Street Journal, Oct 2021 · Think3fold & Netflix
- Desperate Parents Turn to Shopping Bots to Hunt for Hottest Christmas Gifts ↗ · The Wall Street Journal, Nov 2021 · NBCUniversal
- 2016–2018
Founder, Baseline Collective
Bentonville, AR
Integrated and experiential campaigns for Google, OK Foods and national cultural institutions. 2019 Arkansas Henry Award for the Fort Smith Bicentennial campaign.
- Downtown Business Association formed, website launched ↗ · Times Record, Jan 2017
- An event of their own ↗ · Times Record, Mar 2017
- Committee prepares for bicentennial ↗ · Times Record, Jul 2017
- Look to the Streets ↗ · NWA Democrat-Gazette, Sep 2018
- 2015–2016
Media Developer, U.S. Marshals Museum
Fort Smith, AR
$1.5M in first-day revenue launching the U.S. Marshals 225th Anniversary Commemorative Coins with the U.S. Mint. 2015 Arkansas Henry Award.
- Marshals museum nears half of goal ↗ · NWA Democrat-Gazette, Apr 2015
- Dunn, On Riding Herd Over U.S. Marshals Project ↗ · Talk Business & Politics, Jul 2015
- Marshals Museum gets $1M gift ↗ · NWA Democrat-Gazette, Sep 2015
- 2010–2015
Earlier career
- Associate Creative Director, ROAR Creative
- Consultant, Mason Kesner LLC · Pernod Ricard, Paramount Pictures
- Media Production, Harvest Time
- Early-stage startups in retail, apparel and digital marketing
- Fort Smith Announces Plans To Celebrate City's Bicentennial ↗ · Times Record, Feb 2015
Education
The New School
MA, Politics (expected 2028) · BA, Management, Leadership & Entrepreneurship (expected 2027)
University of Arkansas–Fort Smith
BBA, 2012
Speaking & press